An acceleration sensor having comb electrodes and including a seismic mass connected to the substrate in a deflectable manner, substrate electrodes which are fixedly connected to the substrate and counter-electrodes which are fixedly connected to the seismic mass is described in German Patent Application No. DE 10 2006 059 928 A1. The substrate electrodes and the counter-electrodes are each designed as substrate plates and counter-plates which run parallel to the deflection direction and which partially overlap in an idle state.
The electrodes of such sensor systems used to detect a deflection must be electrically calibrated before the sensor system is started for the first time in order to compensate for manufacturing fluctuations. Furthermore, an evaluation circuit which evaluates the signals measured by the electrodes must be calibrated. A calibration of this type is usually carried out by applying a reference deflection which is measured with the aid of the electrodes and the evaluation circuit. A scaling factor, hereinafter also referred to as the calibration factor, which is a measure of the deviation of the sensor system and is used in future measurements for correcting the measured signals, is determined by comparing the measured deflection with the reference deflection. The sensor system must be idle during a calibration procedure of this type.